Saturday, January 5, 2013

Our pals at Sideshow Collectibles had three exclusive 1/6th scale Hot Toys for SDCC 2012, my favourite of which is clearly Lt. Jim Gordon in his S.W.A.T. uniform from The Dark Knight. Jim Gordon, or Jimbo Gordo as Bruce often calls him, is portrayed by the steely eyed, take-no-crap, grizzled mega-actor Gary Oldman, who I have attempted to strip of his dignity with the following pose...

But as you can see, taking away Gary Oldman's dignity is impossible (even though Luc Besson tried really hard in The Fifth Element). The man has GRAVITAS. And that's why this 1/6th scale collectible figure is more than worthy enough for your collection.

See all this and more... after the jump!

Now let's take a long hard look at Gary Oldman's box,

Is that a photograph of Gary Oldman or a photograph of the figure? Nobody really knows thanks to Hot Toy's eerie realism. Not even Gary Oldman can tell, even when he's wearing his special glasses. It's not the prettiest package design we've ever seen but it fits in with the grim, gritty world of Lord Christopher Nolan's Batman.

This time the inner tray slides out of the side of the outer box. There's no hidden accessories in the lid or underneath, everything you need is right here. Be sure to read the instructions too or you're never going to know where some of these things are supposed to go...

As you can see, a lot has been included. He has two extra sets of gloved hands, two extra sets of salacious naked hands. A shotgun, a pistol, a walkie talkie, two pairs of glasses, safety goggles, a helmet, and two plastic ties that I believe are for restraining perpetrators. Evil clown perps in this case.

Here's the basic figure straight out of the box (plus his standard glasses).

What I instantly like about this figure is that his jumpsuit makes him very posable. I have so many superhero characters wearing skintight rubber and body armour that can barely bend their elbows, but Gary Jimbo Gordo Old Man is a veritable gymnast by comparison. We're talking Cirque du Soleil. Seriously.

Here's a quick shot of him all kitted out, and more naturally posed. Then I'll give you a tour of his features...

You can see that the plastic cuffs attach to a loop at the top of his flak jacket, as does the walkie talkie mouth piece. The main unit is stored in a pocket on his back...

This is a very detailed costume, covered with straps and pouches. See his canvas bag that is strapped to his thigh and has tiny fastenings. I don't even know what he stores in there. Probably a thermos, his diary and a Nintendo DS. Although he is an "Old Man" so maybe its just his pipe and his slippers?

The pistol fits into the magnetically closing thigh holster as seen above. Like all Hot Toys weapons you can remove the magazine. Look at his knee pads too - they're even scuffed up and painted to look dirty.

Nice detail here on his S.W.A.T. shoulder patch too...

But Hot Toys are renown for their head sculpts - so let's assess how they did with this one.

There's the real reason to purchase this figure. He's a perfect, instantly recognisable Gary Oldman. Thanks to his age there's a lot more detail in this one, with plenty of tiny wrinkles and spots on his skin. If he was any more realistic there'd be food in his moustache. This is easily one of my favourite head sculpts to date and is a dead ringer for Gary regardless of the angle...

Once again, I love how a change in light really brings out the sculpt. Make sure you light your displays, folks. Shadows form on the figures in a very natural way.

The glasses are, of course, removable but Gary looks pretty intense without them...

I've seen him play so many terrifying villains that he looks far too badass without them. It makes you realise how much he needs the Jim Gordon glasses to soften his look, age him a little, and make him more vulnerable. You don't want to stare into his eyes for too long. This toy looks like it has a soul. More so than other action figures anyway. Mekanek? Mr. Potatohead? Totally soulless.

There's an uncanny valley thing that happens when you start to play around with the pose...

Creepy.

We'd better put his glasses on again, but we'll try his second pair which I think are safety glasses for shooting dudes in the face. These are to protect him from blood, grey matter and shrapnel.

It changes the look somewhat and is not quite as cool as the classic glasses.

The only disappointment with this figure, however, is his safety goggles and helmet. The inside of the helmet is far too small and constrictive to accomodate Gary's silver pompadour. Try as I might, all I could do was get it to rest awkwardly a top his head. It looks far sillier in person than this photo even reveals...

I can only imagine that this was some sort of problem during the manufacturing phase because it does Hot Toys no favours to include an accessory that can't even be used. It was optimistic to begin with because I really cannot imagine that anyone would choose to display him in that mode anyway, thereby covering up the best part of the figure.

I'll be displaying him as you see here..

The Hot Toys Batman line are some of their best and most popular figures and Jim Gordon here is really no exception. Needless to say, I'm a big fan of this figure. This is the first version of him they have released and I guess we may see a regular version down the road but I can't image his suit being of more interest that this detailed S.W.A.T. version. What's he going to come with? A ballpoint pen and a coffee mug?

Now the only downside here is that, as an exclusive, Gordon was much desired and therefore hard to come by, with prices instantly skyrocketing on ebay. He is, of course, sold out at Sideshow, however, you can put your name down on a wait list if you need him for your collection. You can do that right here: